After taking the trouble of going to court to sue Michael O’Leary for saying that he lied about easyJet’s punctuality rates, Stelios Haji-Ioannou has only gone and published a letter on the easyGroup website threatening to terminate easyJet’s brand license – unless they improve their punctuality rate within 90 days. Perhaps Michael O’Leary can go to the court of appeal with a view to downgrading his “unreserved apology” to maybe “just being a little bit sorry”.

In my last blog, I complained about suffering at the hands of easyJet (and Ryanair) on many occasions over the years. If they haven’t managed to improve punctuality (or customer service) over 10 years, doing it within 90 days could be a tall order.

Therefore I can see an opportunity for a few branding agencies to come up with something punchy and effective to reflect “the brand soon to be formerly known as easyJet’s” ethos.

My initial suggestion would be AreWeThereYetJet. (unfortunately not) but I’m sure that the talented copywriters who enter The Drum magazine’s Chip Shop Awards could come up with a few crackers.

Anyone else got any suggestions?

Gideon Spanier highlighted in the Evening Standard on 19th July that the most successful creative agencies were built on long-term client relationships.

 The focus was on the advertising industry and cited example agency/client relationships such as AMV and Sainsbury’s (30 years plus), DDB and Volkswagen (50 years plus) and JWT and Shell (47 years). These large agencies don’t fit the Alchemis client base profile, but it is interesting to view the reasons why these relationships have withstood the test of time. The usual statements and parallels are made – “The secret of success is as simple and as hard as in marriage” (Stephen Woodford – Chief Executive of DDB). Cilla Snowball (what a fantastic surname!) of AMV says “the relationship, the work and the output have to be bigger than the individuals at any point in time”. Nigel Bogle of BBH said of the departure of the Levi’s account that it felt like “your arm has been cut off”.

 These are all the things a client of any agency would want to hear, but what does it actually mean? Of course you work hard for your clients and losing one is a painful experience. Whilst it is not common at Alchemis, we do lose clients from time to time, and it is gut wrenching when it happens. However, reading between these slightly clichéd comments, the article, in fact, does capture the essence of a strong working relationship which applies to the Alchemis/Client relationship as well. An open, honest approach with constant evaluation and evolution is fundamental. An agency should never get complacent. There are numerous others out there with enthusiasm and fresh ideas waiting to grab that account, so you need to stay focused and constantly supply innovative, quality output. However, therein lies the opportunity. “The average client-agency relationship is only four and a half years” highlights Snowball. With the scale of creative requirement in the UK, that means opportunities for our clients. If incumbents get complacent, don’t quite deliver as they have before, or the company requires a new approach/change in direction and a new way of communicating, we need to ensure that our clients are in place to win that business and that is what Alchemis is good at. We have the tools and processes plus high quality New Business Managers to ensure that we are speaking to those prospects at the right time.

 I don’t want to sound too sceptical, but I do think the article needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. These 30 year plus relationships are great and show that the agencies involved must be producing quality output. However, these are “glamour” accounts. There is no doubt that the agency will ensure involvement from the top level. These clients will win that agency new business and as a result don’t want to be lost at any cost. However, is that the case for all of the clients under that agency banner? With independently owned and run companies, senior (owner) level involvement is the norm on each and every account. Livelihoods depend on it. That is the case for 99.9% of Alchemis clients (and most other small to medium sized agencies), but it really is something that prospects like to hear when being courted by a new agency.

2010 has been interesting for a number of political, sporting and other factors. However, Alchemis is focused on advertising and marketing and the Guardian article (July 12th) was a great sanity check as it mirrors our experiences over the first half of 2010.

The article focuses on the recent Bellwether report, published by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. It has found that one in five companies cut annual advertising spend between April and June. This compares with 15% that said spend was increased.

It was as recent as Quarter One when the report announced that more UK companies raised their marketing budgets than cut them for the first time in two-and-a-half years.

Advertising took a knock, although big events such as the World Cup meant the dip in this area was not as significant as it could have been. Sales promotion was hit very hard, with the report recording “the third fastest downgrade to spending on the sales promotion sector in the Bellwether survey’s history”

It is not all doom and gloom. For those in the digital sector spend went up, although at a very slow rate. Internet advertising continued to grow, with social media remaining a major focus. With ROI crucial, digital media’s measurability is very appealing to company bean counters.

Despite all of this, as a new business agency, we (and our clients) should latch onto Rory Sutherland’s (IPA President) comments – “Although this indicates a less optimistic picture than previously thought for this year, marketing spend is still set to increase.”

In fact, we are optimistic at Alchemis. As I mention above, our experiences have mirrored the positive first quarter followed by a slower second quarter with the digital sector remaining the growth area. We, and our clients, entered 2010 with a bang. New briefs were plentiful and outstanding proposals suddenly got the green light. We had a record quarter for clients converting business in all disciplines. The feeling from the market and our clients felt positive. Companies and marketing departments had stuck two fingers up to the recession and the combined efforts of Alchemis and our clients over the last hard 12 months were paying dividends.

Quarter Two did see a dip, although in fact, there were and are still lots of opportunities out there for small to medium sized agencies and results from the second quarter still smashed the figures from 2009. I am not an economist, but there is no doubt in my mind that the uncertainty both before and following the election was a factor. Those are out of the way now and the one thing that has not waned is the number of marketing professionals who have wanted to meet new agencies. We have set record numbers of meetings in May and June. If times are tough, you need to look at quality, cost-effective solutions. I’ve waxed lyrical about it before, but our client base of small to medium sized agencies offer exactly that and the market is really open to approaches from them.

There is still much uncertainty out there and whilst commentators will have their opinion, what happens next is anyone’s guess. However, we know that you will need to be prepared for both a down or upturn. If your current clients cut their budgets, you need to have irons in the fire with new business. If, as we all hope, the second quarter dip is short lived, you want to make sure that you have got the introductions out of the way before those budgets are released and allocated.

The Lib-Cons will be there for a while yet, Germany has beaten us again, but who knows what the rest of 2010 will bring? All I know is that everyone in agency land needs to be prepared for any eventuality.